Pacing the Techpot: Navigating Through Waves of Innovation

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Your favorite tech digest has evolved alongside the rapid waves of innovation in the tech world. While Techpot used to be your weekly dose of tech updates every Tuesday, we’ve transitioned to a rhythm that matches the pace of significant tech breakthroughs.

No longer a weekly episode, Techpot now springs into action with an episode when monumental advancements shake the tech sphere, like when Apple unveiled Vision Pro, or when OpenAI launched the interactive GPT-4 mobile app.

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Two later episodes due to Build

Hey Techpot fans!

This week we have not one but two episodes for you!

Our regular episode will be postponed later this week due to Microsoft Build. But don’t worry, we have a special edition about this annual event for the software development community coming up right after that!

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From Google I/O to AI ‣ Techpot ep. 3

In this week’s Techpot episode, we witnessed Microsoft’s remarkable Copilot demos and their commitment to AI advancements, while Google stole the show at Google I/O 2023 with innovative hardware releases and AI integration.

Elon Musk appointed former ad director of NBC, Linda Yaccarino, as new CEO of Twitter and X Inc., signaling a focus on advertising strategies.

And if you’re in the mood for some laughs, we discovered a hilarious Reddit thread showcasing software engineers’ battle to create the worst user interfaces. Stay tuned for more exciting tech updates on the next episode of Techpot!

Quick links

Watch episode 3 on YouTube

Show notes

Transcript

A new Tuesday, a new Techpot. It is May 16, and we have a lot of news to cover. So we’re going quickly now because for Microsoft we’re gonna show you new cool demos for Copilot where there’s also a early access. A very nice, interesting trend index about will AI work. And, also highlights about Google IO 2023. So let’s get moving.

As announced, there is a lot from Microsoft. Separate blog post where it will give you some highlights. There’s a press release basically saying the same thing in a lot of text, but more interesting the word trend index and the demos. There is an extensive article about how this artwork is created with AI by John Han. He explains that whole process in a separate post, which is worth watching.

The main Microsoft News. It’s demoed in animations, just like here, where you’ll see Copilot in Teams where you’re asking the AI, basically Microsoft Copilot is the AI for Microsoft, what you need is generating some replies, gathering the information, and you can use the same thing here as a Copilot Microsoft Designer and Whiteboard, asking for some suggestions. It will suggest the items right there, even ranks them. Insert them and you can post that in teams, in email, in the whiteboard itself. And you can use it. You can even ask the AI to select it, categorize it, and it will analyze what kind of categories it is, sort them out and there you go. Life will be so much easier.

Copilot in PowerPoint. One of the examples before was that you can say, okay, change all titles on all slides now into orange. But it is also incorporating DALL-E for all your image work. There is rewriting, there is in outlook, copilot in outlook to respond to your emails. Copilot in OneNote. Give me a summary, of course in teams. Summarize the meeting or if you’re getting in later, catch me up. In Microsoft Loop, basically Notion, like a workspace you can ask to actually use it as a team.

Just Microsoft Copilot for Viva, um, in SharePoint. So Microsoft is making big bets on AI with Copilot. It’s also making a big bet on nuclear fusion. This company called Helion Energy promised Microsoft that it will be able to deliver by 2028. Interesting thing is it is also funded by OpenAI.

Speaking of open ai, says it’s readying the new open source AI model. There’s not so much information yet, but that it is releasing some open (source) AI is quite interesting.

Right now GPT plugins ,as announced before, uh, including web browsing, is rolled out for plus users, for paying users . You can see right here what you can enable. This is the web browsing, the plug-ins, the code interpreter. That will allow you to go beyond the cap limit in September, 2021. It will show you right here what it did.

Amazon is interestingly one of the few big tech company that is not really partnering up. It’s trying to do it all by itself, starting with codename Burnham, which is a secret new home robot where you can talk to with ChatGPT (-like) features, it will start understand more of its surroundings, so if you can ask: Where are you now? What do you see, what should be done?

It is betting more on that hardware side. Same as it comes to search. It’s listing new job offers where it said it will revolutionize search. So it looks like Amazon is entering the war against Google and Microsoft with OpenAI.

Speaking of Google, this was the week of Google I/O 2023. Microsoft will do its Build next week. This is Google’s week . There were a lot of announcements. Interestingly, whatever website you look with all the announcements, it will start with all the hardware.

People are most impressed by its hardware, like the Pixel Fold, its first foldable phone. The Pixel Tablet, which is not pitched as an iPad alternative but actually as a family device, centering in your home to be accessed, to be used by your entire family.

Of course, ai, ai, ai. So, next time it will be from Google I/O to Google A/I. It’s boosting its Android system. There is a really interesting magic editor, which I will show you in a little bit further because these are the biggest nine announcements according to The Verge, of course, I’ve added a few myself. So search, yes. Snapshots, Bard is available to everyone. It’s not limited anymore. You will get customization, a new Wear OS number four and a new home app.

But, this photo is a magic editor. It was removed, the people removed. The sky is, uh, updated and here it comes the magic. If you think, okay, my centering was a little off, let me adjust the main object. This lady in this case a little bit further to the right.

So we had a lot of Microsoft Copilot news. Basically, Google introduces the marketing term for their copilot and called Duet AI and that is bringing AI into their Google Docs. Sheet, Slides, Meet, Gmail. So Duet AI it is for Google.

Now, I promised you I’ve added a few more myself. I’ve found this news for Wendy’s (Burgers) using Google Bard as their first attempt for AI chat bot. So AI is coming for our jobs now anyways, at least if you’re flipping burgers or at least ordering, taking the orders of the burgers.

Now this was the most interesting part I saw. It’s a immersive view that Google is introducing. This is the standard view when you’re creating a new route. You see your little preview already here. And it will show you in 3D, like a bird’s eye view, adding a little, the weather conditions. It will give you a preview how it will look like.

And this, I must say, looks quite impressive, especially if you wanna bike sh preview your route. Um, it will even update, uh, not in real time, of course. Uh, also in ai, how busy it is. You see the temperature rising, then you see a little bit temperature changes and it will be updated in your immersive view as well.

While Amazon is doing it all by itself, Google, however, is partnering up with Adobe. Adobe for Firefly in this case to come up with a DALL-E alternative, and it’s basically looking like Microsoft Designer if you’ve been able to use it.

Finally in the additions is the, uh, Google Geospatial Creator, and this is another partnership with Adobe. Uh, and actually also with Unity. This time not for Firefly, but for Aero. And Unity as a game engine. What they’re doing here is really laying the groundwork for their metaverse. Believe it or not, this is all about augmented reality, aR, and as a matter of fact, it’s a huge competitor now with Niantic, known for the Pokemon Go game. And their Lightship product is basically doing the same thing. So Google is entering the Metaverse.

Now Twitter, finally, Musk has found his new CEO and her name is Linda Yaccarino, start in about five to six weeks now. Interesting little scoop was that her LinkedIn said she started in March already. She’s coming from NBC. She has been there an executive for over a decade in the ad business. So it looks like that the new helm of Twitter is a very ad-minded ceo, if you will. They were not strangers because back in April, you will see that they already know each other.

So here we see Linda to reinventor your challenge, legacy new challenge Habits with Twitter, many of us in this room. We might even go to bed with it in our pocket. On the night table. We challenge rituals.

Coming to the end, I have one little Easter egg for you, and this is a hilarious thread on Reddit, where engineers compete who creates the worst UI. And here you see already one for your phone number, to delete your accounts.

Very funny interface for your volume right here. Look what happens to that little slider. Oops, fell down. Subscribe and once subscribed, we will do everything to keep you from unsubscribing. Just joking. Scan this qr, but you have to make it first as a jigsaw puzzle. Use your pointer with a little fan . So if you want dark mode, this is the real dark mode.

So have fun. See you later. And uh, thanks again for watching and listening to Techpot. Next Tuesday, a new episode.